The World Wide Web (“the Web”) is a system for publishing information, in which users may use a web browser application to retrieve information, such as web pages, from web servers and display it.
The Web has increasingly become a medium used to shop for products.
Indeed, thousands and thousands of different products—as well as other items such as service contracts—may be purchased on the Web. A user who plans to purchase an item on the Web can visit the Website of a Web merchant that sells the item, view information about the item, give an instruction to purchase the item, and provide information needed to complete the purchase, such as payment and shipping information.
It is typical for a user to view information about a product on an “item detail page.” The information provided on an item detail page may include such information as the item's name and source, a picture of the item, a description of the item, reviews or ratings of the item, a price at which the item is offered for sale, and a control—such as a button—that may be activated by the user to order the item from the web merchant.
In some senses, shopping at a web merchant is significantly more compelling than shopping at a physical merchant. For example, a user that shops at a web merchant can complete a shopping task without the extra inconvenience, time cost, and pecuniary cost associated with visiting a physical merchant in person. Also, a user may shop at two or more web merchants simultaneously, permitting him or her to simultaneously gather information about the product from several sources.
Although shopping at a web merchant has several distinct advantages such as those discussed above, shopping at conventional web merchants shares certain disadvantages with shopping at physical merchants. One such disadvantage is that it is often difficult for a customer considering purchasing an item from either kind of merchant to understand how long the item will be available for ordering from the merchant. Sometimes an items that has been available for purchase from a particular physical merchant or web merchant becomes unavailable. In many cases, this is because the merchant has exhausted its inventory in the item, and is unable to replenish its inventory. Such inability to replenish inventory in an item may be temporary, e.g., the manufacturer or supplier from which the merchant obtains the item may have exhausted its inventory, or permanent, e.g., the item's manufacturer may have ended manufacture of the item. Where a customer sees that an item is available for purchase from a particular merchant, decides to purchase the item from that merchant later, and then discovers that the item is no longer available for purchase from the merchant, the customer is disappointed, and must purchase the item from another source. In some cases, the merchant's inability to replenish is shared by some or all other sources of the item, making it difficult or impossible for the customer to purchase the item anywhere.
Accordingly, a facility for providing information about a future time at which a merchant's inventory in an item is expected to be exhausted would have significant utility.